Is George Galloway really going to ‘shift the tectonic plates’ of British political life?

The aftershocks of George Galloway’s earthquake victory in Rochdale continue to reverberate around the political landscape. As Galloway himself put it, with some hyperbole, he believes his win will “spark a movement, a landslide, a shifting of the tectonic plates in scores of parliamentary constituencies”.

As he took his seat in the House of Commons at the earliest opportunity, even the usual niceties stirred up some controversy. It had been suggested that Galloway would be walked into the chamber and formally introduced by Jeremy Corbyn, an old comrade from the 1980s, and David Davis, the sometimes quixotic former Tory Brexit secretary. After Davis dropped out, the task fell to the father of the House, Peter Bottomley, who’s been an independently minded Conservative MP since 1975, and Neale Hanvey, the Westminster Leader of the Alba Party.

Soon the House will be treated to Galloway’s “maiden” speech (not his first one), and no doubt some dramatic parliamentary moments. No wonder Rishi Sunak said his return is “beyond alarming”.

How much good Galloway will do for the people Rochdale, or Gaza for that matter, remains to be seen...

Turbulent. He says he “will shake the walls of Westminster, which will change history”. We know where he’s coming from, too, in all senses.

He’s an old hand, having first been elected a member of parliament in 1987. He represented two consecutive seats in Glasgow for Labour until 2003, then as an independent until 2005, when, having switched to the Respect Party, he won Bethnal Green and Bow. He stood down from that seat in 2010, and came back in a 2012 by-election in Bradford West, also for Respect. He fought and lost that seat in 2015.

So he knows the place, and he will know exactly how to wind up the authorities and generate maximum publicity for various stunts, such as being thrown out of the chamber for defying the speaker, deploying lurid and insulting unparliamentary language, and using, or abusing, parliamentary privilege to defame people and institutions.

He’s a fine orator and a skilled campaigner, and not beyond learning a few tricks from the likes of Trump and Farage, treating every setback as evidence of an establishment plot. He’ll also seek to place himself and his Workers Party of Britain at the head of the anti-war demonstrations and maybe the odd picket line. It wouldn’t be surprising if he got himself arrested. So yes, he’s likely to make some waves.

Until the general election, so it could be less than a year. There is a slightly lazy assumption that Labour will easily win the seat back in a few months, but that’s not certain. The party would need a candidate who can enjoy the confidence of the party leadership and appeal to the substantial number of voters who agreed with Galloway’s views on the Middle East as well as domestic issues.

Labour did win Bradford West back in 2015, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will do similar in Rochdale in 2024 – though the party is a much stronger force nationally now. It may be that Labour’s failure to field a viable candidate in the by-election has cut some previously loyal voters adrift, and that, having lost the habit of voting Labour, they’ll stick with Galloway. It’s also true that Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza has alienated many who had been sympathetic to the Israeli cause after the Hamas atrocities on 7 October last year.

On the other hand, the more they see and hear about Galloway’s views, the less they may like him.

Like it or not, no. He has friends like Corbyn on what’s left of the Labour left, and the SNP shares many of his views on the war in Gaza (although he is vehemently against Scottish separatism). To the extent that he will be treated as a parliamentary pariah, it will probably suit him, as he seems to despise the clubby ways of Westminster and presents himself as something of a lone wolf. And boy, can he howl.

With Corbyn and some other former Labour MPs, both inside and outside parliament, Starmer has very little leverage; in Galloway’s case he has none at all. It was easy to see why Galloway fell out with Tony Blair over the Iraq war – Galloway famously admired and saluted Saddam Hussein’s indefatigability, while Blair, erm, didn’t, and was Galloway’s party leader until Galloway was expelled by Labour in 2003. But Galloway’s personal exposure to Starmer has been far less – indeed, Galloway’s last stint in the Commons ended just as Starmer’s began, at the 2015 general election.

Galloway will obviously want to stoke division within Labour and embarrass the leadership, and no one can stop him. The best Starmer can do is to avoid being in the chamber when Galloway shows up – Prime Minister’s Questions will be a danger zone if Galloway gets called – and generally avoid him. If there is a lasting ceasefire in Gaza, then some of the pressure on Starmer’s “balanced” policy will ease, and in due course Labour may regain Rochdale.

The worst-case scenario for Starmer would be for Galloway, Corbyn and others to form some sort of loose alliance and challenge Labour candidates in seats with a substantial number of younger “Momentum” types and Muslim voters – and for the group to win, say, three or four seats.

Standing in the way of that broad hard-left/green/progressive alliance is Galloway’s splenetic tendency to extremism on everything – in particular, his hostility to refugees arriving on small boats; his support for Brexit; his backing of Putin; his scepticism about climate change; the trans rights issue; and his recent dallying with conspiracy theories about the likes of Russell Brand. He’s not always been an easy colleague. No one argues with that.